Milk group cancels SF awards show

NEWS

by Matthew S. Bajko

It was to be the signature event of San Francisco's
inaugural Harvey Milk Day celebrations, an LGBT awards show similar to the
Kennedy Center Honors named after the city's first openly gay elected official.
But less than a month after announcing plans for the Milk awards, its
organizers pulled the plug on the ceremony.

Stuart Milk, the openly gay nephew of the late gay
Supervisor Harvey Milk, told the Bay Area Reporter
last week that he had decided to cancel the awards
show. It was to have benefited the Harvey B. Milk Foundation, a new
philanthropic institution Stuart Milk had formed with friends to carry on the
message of his famous relative.

"The big gala that was planned for May 21 seemed to
have lots of different issues. The general feeling from folks ... was there
wasn't enough time to do one in the way it should be done," said Stuart
Milk. "So it looks like we are going to shoot for something larger next
year."

Harvey Milk rose to power in the late 1970s and was
catapulted onto a national stage after winning his supervisor seat in 1977, the
first out person to be elected to office in a major U.S. city. The following
year disgruntled former supervisor Dan White assassinated Milk and then-Mayor
George Moscone inside City Hall.

Three years ago openly gay state Senator Mark Leno (D-San
Francisco), who had served in the supervisor seat considered to be Milk's,
began to campaign for the creation of a state holiday in honor of the slain gay
rights leader. Last fall Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger dropped his opposition
to Leno's proposal and signed into law the legislation establishing Harvey Milk
Day in California.

Leaders in San Francisco began meeting in December to plan
how to mark the occasion. When the awards idea was first proposed, Milk
foundation officials immediately ran into obstacles. The state's first Harvey
Milk Day holiday on May 22, which would have been Milk's 80th birthday,
coincided this year with the biannual Black and White Ball, a fundraiser for
the San Francisco Symphony. Out of deference to organizers of the charity ball,
the Milk awards producers had planned to hold it Friday, May 21 so as not to
compete with the other event.

The Masonic Auditorium had agreed to donate its space for
the awards show, but organizers also needed to find corporate sponsors to help
cover the event costs. Stuart Milk said that due to the still struggling
economy and short time frame to line up financial backers, he opted to instead
postpone the awards show for a year.

"We don't have a full-time staff to put this together.
It may have been more than enough for us to chew off in San Francisco,"
said Stuart Milk. "I am still hoping maybe next year we will get closer to
an epic, epicenter type of event for San Francisco that brings all the Harvey
Milk recognition activities together."

Local events producer Audrey Joseph, who has been working
with Milk foundation officials to plan the various Milk Day activities in San
Francisco, was audibly upset by the decision to cancel the awards show and a
post-event dance in a phone interview with the B.A.R.
last week. She said she had lined up several major
companies as sponsors, but because of Stuart Milk's hectic travel schedule, it
became impossible to properly plan the event.

"It was very upsetting to me. It was an opportunity
that has passed that would have been wonderful, in the first year doing a
really great event recognizing people in the community," said Joseph.
"It is what it is."

Stuart Milk praised the amount of time that Joseph and
Dominic Phillips, who does events marketing, had put into trying to make the
awards show a go this year.

"I thought starting this in December would give us
enough time. But I am not an event planner. Now I can see the amount of work
involved in those types of events," said Stuart Milk. "A lot of good
people in San Francisco were working under time constraints trying to pull that
off. It just came down to not enough time or resources."

Joseph is still working on throwing a street festival in the
Castro Saturday afternoon on May 22. She has been meeting with merchants in the
gayborhood and officials at the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, an
alternative public school in the Castro, to help plan the outdoor event.

And still in the works is a planned diversity breakfast in
honor of Milk that morning. Organizers hope to have lined up a venue by April.
They are still determining what the cost of tickets will be and what time it
will begin.

TJ Istvan, Emperor XXVII after Norton, who is on the board
of the International Court Council, is working with leaders of the Harvey Milk
LGBT Democratic Club on the breakfast. Due to the cancellation of the awards
show, he told the B.A.R. this week they
likely will have to plan for a larger audience than they initially were
expecting to attend.

They had been seeking out venues to hold up to 500 people,
said Istvan.

"Maybe we should up the ante and maybe go for a bigger
number. We are also toying with the idea to make it a fundraiser for the foundation,
which is something we would like to do," said Istvan. "We are going
into this blind so we don't have a clue as to how many people to expect."

The San Francisco breakfast is modeled after a similar event
held in San Diego last year that drew a sell-out crowd of 900. Nicole Murray
Ramirez, who launched the breakfast and is president of the court council, is
planning for 1,500 people or more at this year's event, which will be held
Friday, May 21 and benefits the San Diego LGBT Community Center.

There are numerous events planned throughout California and
the country to mark the first Harvey Milk Day. The Milk foundation's signature
event this year will be a Wednesday, May 12 fundraiser at the California Museum
in Sacramento being promoted as the kickoff to the various celebrations.

First lady Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy clan, is
donating the space, which houses the California Hall of Fame into which Milk
was inducted last fall by Shriver and her husband, Schwarzenegger. A VIP
reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. will be a tribute to Milk based on the play Dear
Harvey by Patricia Loughrey. An outdoor
party open to the general public will be held after the VIP ceremony.

Ticket prices to both have yet to be announced. Kelly
Hannaford, who owns event planning company Details, Details, has been working
with the Sacramento Stonewall Democrats chapter and Milk foundation officials
for the past month on the event.

"The hope is to see this happening every year,"
said Hannaford, who has known Stuart Milk for seven years. "We just hit
the pavement running with it and want to make it a fabulous evening for
everyone."

Stuart Milk said he was unsure if the foundation would hand
out any awards at the Sacramento event as it had planned to do in San
Francisco. Nor did he rule out the foundation putting on a smaller event in the
city on May 21 to make up for the cancellation of the award show.

"I don't want to say there will be an event. Certainly,
if there is one it will not be the size of the event planned for the Masonic,"
said Stuart Milk. "The folks in Sacramento seem to have a better time
getting an event together and are not running up against any Blue and Black
people as happened in San Francisco. I guess in San Francisco it is a challenge
to pull together a large event fairly quickly."